How to Start on a Plant-Based Diet

How to start on a plant-based diet... and the big difference you can make by doing this

M.M.: What do you say to people who are interested in maybe getting
into a vegan or vegetarian way of life, but aren’t in a position to come to your
office for a personal consultation?

M.K.: There are some excellent websites and books. The Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine has a vegan starter kit. Dr. Joel Fuhrman
wrote a beautiful book called Eat to Live, and he makes a simple, plant-based
diet really nutritious and delicious. Or just Google “vegan meals” and they’ll
get lots of recipes.

Just start simply, maybe just one day a week. Like on Thursday just have
granola and soy milk for breakfast, a tofu sandwich for lunch and spaghetti for
dinner just to show yourself that you can make it for one day without animal
products. Then make it two days, then three days. Instead of having meat three
times a day, make it one meal a day.

Make two out of your three meals vegan meals every day. Just have people put
their toe in the water, and they’ll find out that it’s pretty good food.

M.M.: Let’s talk a moment about vivisection. If you had your druthers,
would you just say shut the whole thing down, the labs, all of it?

M.K.: If it’s hurting the animals we simply shouldn’t do it. But then
you say what about the potential cures for some cancers or whatever? I couldn’t
say that we’ve learned nothing from animal experimentation. We probably have,
but the wholesale callousness of it … it’s such a huge industry at this point.

When it comes to animal research, white mice are pulled out of cages like
tissues out of a box. And the thought for the individual animal’s life never
even enters the equation.

There comes a point when you have to say stop or you know you’re going to lose
your soul. You have to say “Stop, I’m making a stand on behalf of compassion –
on behalf of my humanity, on behalf of common sense.”

We could certainly do away with 95 percent of animal experimentation, but I
would say first adopt a plant-based diet and a healthy lifestyle. Start
subsidizing the fruit and vegetable growers, make produce freely available
through the schools and government food programs and really get serious about
getting people healthier, and your need for all this huge animal experimentation
will diminish to almost zero.

I mean, what are we killing all these animals for except to find another
magic pill so we can go eat our cheese burgers and pizzas. That is really what
it’s all about. Health comes from healthy living. Get serious about that and the
need for animal experimentation for truly life-saving drugs will drop down to a
thimble of what it is now. Get serious about that and the need for vivisection
will essentially disappear.

M.M.: We now have seven billion people on the planet. The climate is
changing. Lots of things are changing. What’s your prognosis for our collective
future?

M.K.: I grew up in Chicago, and I was a long-suffering Chicago sports
fan watching the Cubs, the White Socks and the Bears lose every year. I feel
like I’m in a long drawn out Chicago Cubs game, and we’re in the bottom of the
ninth and the prognosis is not good. You’d have to be an idiot to not see these
terrible signs: the animals are disappearing, the ice caps are melting, the
oceans are going acidic, these are huge destructive forces.

If the Earth was a medical patient, I would put it in the intensive care unit.
It needs intensive care.

So, yes, I’m extremely concerned. Can we still turn it around?

Yes, but it’s going to take a huge awakening. And there are a lot of forces
against that, seducing us into somnolence. “Feed them food and entertain them
and distract them so they don’t see what’s happening.” We have to wake up from
that somnolence. There’s still time. We can turn it around, and I’m going to
keep working to help people wake up. I used to do anesthesia to put people to
sleep; now it’s much more fun to wake them up!

M.M.: What can anyone do to help the planet?

M.K.: You empower yourself through the choices you make and what you
spend your money on. I try to make my life a statement of compassion and
integrity. I’ve stopped eating animals and I’ve stopped wearing animals. I try
to stand up when animals are being cruelly exploited. In my practice, I do
simple things like trying to avoid prescribing medicines in capsules that are
gelatin-based. I would rather use tablets.

When you have enough people making individual statements, that makes a
movement. And so I’m proud to be a part of that movement. And because I happen
to be a physician, I will make that stand in my medical circles.

Once you know how the animals are suffering, and once you understand how
connected it is, you can’t ignore it.

We each have power for good or for evil. Every cheeseburger we eat creates
destruction in the forest, in the waters, and in the soils. But if you eat
vegetable stir-fry, you help the world a bit, and you support the farmers
growing the vegetables, too.

What we do really does make a difference. Everything on this planet is a
miracle when you look at it. When you understand the biology, the chemistry, and
the physics involved, life is so improbable; it’s so precious.

So have reverence for life, and let your example be the message to make the
world good around you. That’s all we can do.

Part Four: Helping Others to Start on a Plant-Based Diet (coming soon!)

Health Position and Disclaimer

We began this archive as a means of assisting our visitors in
answering many of their health and diet questions, and in encouraging them to
take a pro-active part in their own health. We believe the articles and
information contained herein are true, but are not presenting them as advice.
We, personally, have found that a whole food vegan diet has helped our own
health, and simply wish to share with others the things we have found.
Each of us must make our own decisions, for it's our own body. If you have
a health problem, see your own physician.

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